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Tome
Tome is an Emmy Award-winning animated television miniseries created by Trey Wyrick for The Jungle Channel. The series centers on two half-brothers who travel across a strange forest in order to find their way home, encountering odd and wonderful things on their journey. The show features Parker Cohen and William Staurt as the protagonists Eiliot and Mikey, and Beatrice Simpson as a bird named Lisa. Tome was broadcast throughout the week of November 3, 1979 to November 7, 1981. The show marked the first miniseries on the network, which commenced its production in March 1978. Wyrick first envisioned the show in 1972, and pitched it to the network in 1974. After working on The Champ Family and Cactus, the network expressed interest in Wyrick pitching a pilot. That pilot became the catalyst for Tome. Production of the show was largely handled in New York City, New York, but many of the show's storyboard artists worked from other U.S. cities, while the program's animation was outsourced to South Korea. The series' environment evokes 19th-/20th-century Americana, while its backgrounds are designed to resemble grisaille paintings. Section heading The series follows two half-brothers, Eiliot and Mikey (Parker Cohen and William Staurt respectively), who become lost in a strange forest called the Unknown. In order to find their way home, the two must travel across the apparently magic forest with the help of the wise, elderly Woodsman (Paul Winchell) and Lisa (Beatrice Simpson), an irritable bird who travels with the boys in order to find the woman of Unknown called Adelaide, that can undo the curse and make the half-brothers go back to their home. Eiliot, the older brother, is worry-prone and would rather keep to himself than to have to make a decision. His two passions are the clarinet and poetry, but he keeps this private out of fear of being mocked. On the other hand, Mikey, the younger brother, is all about play and being carefree, much to Eiliot's chagrin and the danger of himself and others. Eiliot carries a frog (Jack Jones), whose name is undetermined and who can communicate only through singing. Stalking the main cast is the Beast (Burt Lancaster), an ancient creature who leads lost souls astray until they give up and turn into "Edelwood trees". In the final two episodes, it is revealed that Eiliot and Mikey are actually two boys from the modern era. Eiliot and Mikey's strange appearance stems from the fact it was Halloween the night they were transported into the Unknown. Eiliot, attempting to take back an embarrassing poetry tape he made for a girl he likes, had followed her to a graveyard scary story gathering before a police officer scared him and Mikey into jumping over the cemetery's garden wall. After they landed on train tracks, Mikey was almost hit by a train. Eiliot pushed them both off a hill into a lake/river in an attempt to save him, knocking them both unconscious in the process. At the very end of the last episode, Eiliot and Mikey wake up in a hospital, with Mikey telling a story but being cut off before we can hear what it's about, leaving the reality of the show's events completely ambiguous. The series ends with a slow montage of how Eiliot and Mikey affected the inhabitants of the Unknown. Home video releases Tome was first released on VHS through Krollo Video in 1983, then through Jungle Home Video in 1990. The animated miniseries was released on DVD in the United States on October 12, 2001 from Jungle Home Entertainment. Category:TV Shows Category:Animation